Provided by: Disney Enterprises Inc.
Blue aliens, a family of superheroes, and a city of talking animals power up walt disney company In 2025, it will top the domestic box office.
Full-year ticket sales in the U.S. and Canada rose about 4% from 2024 to $9.05 billion. Disney accounted for the largest share of ticket sales, with $2.49 billion (27.5%), according to Comscore data.
The closest competitors are: warner bros discoverywhich accounted for $1.9 billion, or 21%, domestically. universalearned $1.7 billion, or 19.7%. Together, these three studios account for nearly 70% of the domestic box office market share.
No other studio had domestic ticket sales exceeding $1 billion or more than 7% of total box office revenue.
“[Warner Bros., Disney and Universal]have the advantage of having at least two distinct and successful sub-labels under their umbrella, such as Disney’s Marvel, WB’s New Line and Universal’s Illumination, which gives these studios an advantage, at least in terms of overall box office revenue and the percentage of the market they control,” said Paul Dergarabedian, head of marketplace trends at Comscore.
Disney’s outstanding achievements were born on the back of an already popular intellectual property. Four of the company’s films were among the top 10 domestic grossers of the year, including the live-action remake of Lilo & Stitch, the sequel to 2016’s Zootopia, the new Marvel Cinematic Universe entry in Fantastic Four: First Steps, and the third Avatar movie.
“The box office in most years is dominated by known IP and non-original content. Movies with established brand names theoretically have an advantage in terms of marketing and box office potential,” Dergarabedian said.
In fact, nine of the top 10 films at the domestic box office came from existing IP. Warner Bros.’ Sinners was the only original title to make the list.
“2025 had some big-budget originals that did incredibly well… But lest anyone think that trend is going away, 2026 is expected to surpass 2025 in terms of the number of high-profile sequels and known IPs per year,” Dergarabedian said.
That’s especially true for Disney.
The studio is set to release its first Star Wars movie in theaters since 2019, titled “The Mandalorian and Grogu,” after the popular characters from Disney+’s “The Mandalorian” series. “Toy Story 5” will be released in theaters in June, followed by the live-action version of “Moana” in July. The long-awaited “Avengers: Doomsday” will be released in December.
A new Spider-Man movie is also scheduled to hit theaters in 2026, but as part of the deal with Sony to make Spider-Man part of Disney’s MCU, Sony will keep most of the box office revenue and Disney will get the merchandise sales.
Box office revenue will also get a boost from Warner Bros. ” “Supergirl” and “Dune Part 3,” Universal’s “Minions 3,” “Super Mario Galaxy Movie” and “Odyssey,” Lionsgate’s “The Hunger Games: Sunrise of the Reaping” and Sony’s third “Jumanji” movie.
“As we look to 2026, there is a lot of optimism,” said Sean Robbins, director of analytics. fandango “This slate is packed with top-tier fan-driven and family-friendly franchises alongside filmmaker-driven tentpoles…and will inevitably draw strong or potentially surprising performers from horror, comedy, indie, and other genres.”
Disclosure: Versant is the parent company of CNBC and Fandango.
